Burning Man Gets its Own Mashup

Beatmaps, an event listings mashup, just posted a neat Burning Man mashup. This tool combines Google satellite maps with Burning Man's schedule of events, a user-generated tagcloud, etc. Registered beatmaps users can add themselves, their camp/artwork/events, etc. and tag everything as they like. (Compare this to the official burning man calendar.) Ideally, this mashup is also sucking in data from existing sources, but it's hard to tell from the limited info at the beatmaps site, which is in beta.

When trying this out myself, it was cool to to click through to more information about Conexus Village, including a partially-submitted schedule of events and a description of the cathedral that camp members have been working so hard on this summer. Two nits: the submission process for adding events is thorough but lengthy, and I was surprised that I could not tag events that others had submitted.

It appears that there's a bit of lat/long coordinate work that needs to be redone, since it turns out that the Burning Man folks have the moved the site plan slightly since last year. I'm hoping that the beatmaps hackers have the time to make the update - it would be utterly fabulous if folks around the world could visit the burning man beatmap to get an almost-there satellite view of burning art, structures being erected, and experiences being lived out on the playa.

This mashup is interesting to me for two reasons besides playa planning. One: it takes the concept of event mashup as implemented by Eventful, and reinvents it for the temporary, mobile geography of Black Rock City.  (Disclosure note: Omidyar Network is an investor in Eventful.) Can you imagine if geotagging had to account for cities moving every year? Two: it changes what's possible for the art and experience of Burning Man. Combine time-sequenced satellite photography of Black Rock City with pinpoint information about art, people, and activities - much less, other video/audio connection - and you can extend immediate, experiential connection and reach to a global community.

Comments

[AL Q]

Hi Cristine this is AL-Q from STEPS.I have a few questions concerning Burning Man.Email Address albertquintana.mac.hope to hear from you.

[AL Q]

Hi Cristine this is AL-Q from STEPS.I have a few questions concerning Burning Man.Email Address albertquintana.mac.hope to hear from you.

[Christine]

Here's an interesting example of how to do this - check out the overflight planned for Foo Camp: http://wiki.oreillynet.com/foocamp06/index.cgi?OverFlight

Creating a series like this in near-to-real time (a la "live" blogging at the end of the day) would get pretty close.

[MartinE]

Christine, aren't Google satellite maps intentionally out of date so they can't be used for realtime intelligence gathering? This would eliminate the possibility of getting realtime Burning Man coverage.
The last time I checked a map for my area it appeared to be fall (no leaves) rather than summer.